


A Symmetry

by Jakallx



Series: Chaotic Threads: Reaper76 Week [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Body Swap, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, Time Travel, Violence, also sort of but not really, end of overwatch, shit gets trippy, sort of but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 22:25:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9349007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jakallx/pseuds/Jakallx
Summary: A flash of blue light and Soldier:76 and Reaper tumble through the dark.Jack Morrison wakes up from a nightmare he doesn't remember, hands shaking and eyes wet.The night is still and the Watchpoint holds its breath. Waiting.Day 2: In His Shoes





	

The reaper’s claws closed around the soldier’s neck.

 _Is_ _this it?_ 76 thought. _Is he finally going to kill me?_

And there, a voice in the back of his head egged the metal claws on.  _D_ _o it_ , the whisper came, _do it, you coward_.

Black spots trickled into his vision, his body protesting against the idea of death even as his mind embraced it. One of his hands flailed out of the pinned grip Reaper had him in, valiantly attempting to save him as it scrabbled against the shelves holding various strange devices. The enormous warehouse was dark and dusty, forgotten as time moved on. His hand closed around a sphere, heavy despite its small size. The black casing reflected his red visor, whatever was hidden inside was probably dangerous. 76 didn’t care. He brought the object forward, hard.

It cracked against Reaper’s mask and emitted a high-pitched screech that had both of them grunt in surprise. Reaper let go of 76’s neck and suddenly he was on the ground, gasping precious air and staring at a fractured neon-blue display.

It began to flash a countdown.

**Three**

76 reached over and picked up the object just as Reaper’s shadow fell over him once again.

**Two**

One of Reaper’s claws closed around his gloved hand, forcing him to hold onto the object, while the other found his neck again.

**One**

Blue light flashed. Exploded outwards, blinding 76 and causing Reaper to hiss as—

Everything went black.

He was falling. Someone was falling with him. No. He was alone. Had he always been alone? Or was that a hand upon his own? He didn’t know anymore.

He didn’t know.

_Didn’t know_

Jack Morrison jerked awake from behind his desk, breathing hard.

What the hell kind of nightmare was that? He looked down at his hands, rough and scarred from years of soldiering, but always ready for a bit more.

They were shaking.

His hands never shook. Never. He dragged them down his face trying to wake up—trying to make himself feel something other than the clear bite of that hole in his chest—but brought them away from his eyes confused. He blinked at the wetness there, feeling his lips tug down as he stared at the salt on his fingers. Suddenly his mouth was dry. He tried to swallow but couldn’t get past the lump in his throat.

The stale air of the room just made everything worse. God, what did it take to get ventilation in this place? He needed to get outside.

He jumped to his feet and was hit by it: the vertigo, the unsteadiness. He swayed there, looking down but not seeing as he clenched his teeth against the edge of the pit that greeted him with a lazy yawn. One hand braced on his office chair, the other on his desk, he waited for it to pass.

The clock on his wall seemed unusually loud tonight. Counting the seconds. He tried to match his breathing to each tick, but after only a few he ended up huffing tiny panicked gasps, unable to keep up. Falling behind.

He was always falling behind.

With a growl that could have been a scream had he not bitten his tongue, Jack slammed his fist onto his desk, the contents on the surface jumping in fright. The pain shocked him enough to claw his way out of whatever emotional bullshit he was feeling right now and made him take the necessary first stumbling steps towards the door.

He needed to get out.

_He needed to get out_

Quickly now, he watched the crisp white hallways pass by in a blur. He didn’t care where his feet took him as long as it was out.

_Free_

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the last threads of the nightmare he barely remembered now.

 _He didn’t want to remember_ … _didn’t want to feel_

Why was he still here? Why had he agreed to stay on another year?

“You can’t stop, Jackie. You’re determined. You’re loyal.”

_You’re a failure_

_Corrupted_

The voice bubbled up in his mind, rough and warm and caring—

—and just another memory he didn’t want. He finally made it to the elevators and punched the down button, but didn’t bother waiting more than a split second before he almost kicked open the fire escape door and took the stairs down three at a time.

When had he started running?

_When you realised you weren’t in control anymore_

_Were you ever in control?_

Jack reached the first floor and managed to calm down enough to stride through the huge atrium without drawing attention to himself. Not that it was much of an issue at 3am; the reception area was deserted, the Watchpoint itself felt as if were in a deep sleep. His steps echoed around the empty room, bouncing from the tiled floor to the elegant glass and steel ceiling. He skirted around the fountain that bubbled in the centre of the room and avoided looking at the posters detailing Overwatch’s past achievements that decorated the walls.

He hated it.

_He missed it_

The frigid night air hit his bare skin like a wall the moment he made it through the front doors. He shuddered and folded his arms together, as if they might offer some protection against the harsh autumn night. Jack had thought he might be used to the European weather by now, but it still caught him off-guard. He had neglected to grab his overcoat on the way out, but in a way he was glad. He hated wearing it lately.

_You will never wear it again_

He shook his head vigorously, trying to get rid of these wayward thoughts, like tangled threads in his mind. Fuck. What was wrong with him tonight? He swallowed that lump in his throat again, grimacing at the pain and the tiny pin pricks of shame that welled up in his eyes.

He whirled around, intending to go back inside and have a long shower before trying to call it a night, when something in the small airfield beside the base caught his eye. Something… The harsh spotlights bathed the various Overwatch dropships and planes in their artificial light almost as bright as the day. He tilted his head as he counted the aircraft. No, they were all there.

He looked a moment longer. The air was still. He could have sworn he saw something.

The night shimmered. Jack’s eye found the little shudder in the air that gave away the stealth-plating of the aircraft. His stomach dropped and his breathing kicked up a notch as he discerned the outline of the dropship.

Blackwatch.

What the hell were they doing here tonight? And why did they have their stealth-plating in effect? He hadn’t received any correspondence in weeks, and if they had decided to drop in for a midnight visit he should have been notified.

Jack swiped his security pass over the airfield gate and began to jog over to the invisible ship. The airfield was quiet. The night was quiet. Almost as if it was holding its breath.

_Fearful_

He made sure to be careful as he approached the ship and began to walk around it, one hand tracing the shape so he wouldn’t run into any overhanging invisible bits. The open cargo hold came into view, stealth-plates suddenly cutting off and creating a strange looking portal into the empty underbelly of the dropship. It wasn’t a massive ship, but it could still carry up to twenty agents. Jack spied the ship’s call sign emblazoned on the wall along with the Blackwatch insignia—MKR06.

Gabe’s dropship.

Jack warily made his way onto the ship, taking care not to make any noise. There was someone in the pilot’s chair, slumped to the side, resting their head on their chest. Napping on the job.

Jack rolled his eyes, and walked up to the cockpit, ready to wake the pilot with a steady hand on the shoulder when he froze, fingers hovering inches from the man’s face.

Because the man didn’t have a face anymore. His blood coated the back of his chair and painted the front of his dark uniform black.

Jack reeled backwards, heart kicking into overdrive. Years of muscle memory has him automatically reaching for the pistol at his hip, while he searched for the possible location of the sniper.

Then his brain caught up with what his eyes were seeing. It wasn’t a sniper bullet that had ripped through the pilot’s face.

Shotgun.

Jack ran. Sprinted harder than he ever had in his life as the sounds of gunfire begun to clamour out from the Watchpoint.

Gabe. Where was Gabe? What was going on? Why was this happening? The thoughts tumbled over in his mind, each question flitting by and disappearing underneath his boots as they hit the hard pavement with heavy thuds.

Above all. One question. How had he let this happen?

_How did you let this happen?_

He slammed back into the reception area and sprinted for the stairs, hitting the fire alarm along the way, barely pausing when it doesn’t go off.

Of course it doesn’t. The silence was much more fitting. There would be no escape from this.

Back up the stairs, three at a time, not letting his burning chest get the better of him. All the while he repeated the mantra. How did you let this happen?

Gunshots.

Short, sharp, loud. Close.

Jack turned on his heel before he climbed another flight of stairs and smashed open the fire escape. He had less than a second to glimpse the bodies lying on the floor, their blood painting the pristine corridor bright red. The first shot hit the wall next to him as he moved forward, ducking and weaving and bringing up his pistol to return fire at the three Blackwatch agents at the opposite end of the corridor.

He shot two of them before they were even able to bring up their weapons. The third managed to get another two shots off, one grazing fire into his exposed side—no armoured coat to save him—before Jack’s bullet found its way into her head.

She was thrown backwards, her own blood joining her victim’s on the walls, mingling together in death.

Jack didn’t give himself time to take in the scene. No survivors, that’s all that mattered. He couldn’t save them.

 _Couldn’t save you_.

He was running again. Back up the stairs, back into his office. He met no one else along the way, but he heard them. Heard the screams on the other floors of the Watchpoint, echoing through the halls. His office door was ajar, and he hesitated for a split second, terrified at what he might find before he kicked it open and entered, gun up. Ready to shoot.

Empty.

His desk had been rifled through, Jack gave it a glance, hoping to see some clue about where Gabe could have gone. Why he was doing this?

_Why are you doing this?_

There. His locked drawer had been picked, spare security pass gone. Why did he take that? Gabe had access to the entire building. Wait. No.

The archives.

Shit.

One last look at his desk showed that the only other difference was a photograph that had previously been face down now stood proudly displayed in its frame. His own youthful face looked out at him, laughing as Gabe put an arm around his waist and pulled him closer.

_Do you remember how we were?_

The abyss inside yawned again, waking up. Hungry.

Jack didn’t give himself time to think. He was running again.

_You’re always running_

_Even now_

The corridors blurred. When he made it to the stairs he jumped down an entire flight with reckless abandon. Almost paid dearly for his haste when he just managed to avoid tripping over a body—bloody, civilian clothes, dead—before he regained his footing and took the stairs at a slightly more reasonable pace. And still the voice went on. Why. Why. Why. Why. Wh—

_There’ll be no saving him_

Jack swiped his access pass to open the basement fire escape, pushing through and running again. He had to make it through the warren of top secret labs and the other completely secret, illegal labs to make it to the server room that housed the archives. The Watchpoint hid it all with its pure and untarnished outside.

Oh. If they had any idea what was going on here…

He felt a prickle at the back of his neck.

Instinct told him to duck and he did, jerking his body weight down and moving into a roll with the momentum from his sprint. The gunshots were loud in the darkened corridor. Jack didn’t give himself time to think. Only do. He came out of the roll, swivelled around on one knee, and let off two shots from his pistol.

Both found their mark in the agents waiting behind the door.

Jack gritted his teeth against the sudden unbidden rage and hurt that rose in his chest. He was shooting his own people! What was going on?

_Oh, you’ll do worse than that_

He was off again, leaving those thoughts behind, concentrating on only one. Find Gabe.

As he entered the lower levels he used his own security pass to check the logs in the system and see whether he was going the right way. As he brought up the last person to pass through here, his own face stared back out at him from the holo screen. Gabe had a five-minute head start on him, but at least he knew where he would end up.

There was only one way in and out of the archives.

The corridors were dark, lit only with the thin strips of red emergency lighting. They must have cut the power to the lower levels. It set Jack’s teeth on edge.

_Reminded him of a world bathed in red_

Jack’s breath began to strain, coming in huffs, faster and faster as he approached his destination. He tried to swallow down the bile that threatened to spill over into his mouth. The shadows in the red corridors threatened to take a hold of him, twist into his body with their clawed tendrils, hurt him.

_Made him suffer. Even now the shadows spun in his veins. The pain—_

Jack tore through the last corridor, vision narrowing as it focused on the door at the end. Red letters declared access restricted in over twenty languages. The security panel to the right, flickered to life as he approached, but declared there was a ‘system failure’ when he swiped his pass.

Fuck.

He swiped it again, fighting back the desperate abyss inside as it clawed its way up his throat.

Gabe must have shot the panel on the other side. He was locked out. The door was three feet of solid steel.

He swiped it again.

And again. And again. Each time the panel flashed red and the door refused to open.

His own scream almost took him by surprise, ripping his mouth bloody as he curled his hand into a fist and punched the smooth concrete beside the panel. His knuckles crunched and he felt the skin rip open, leaving a bloody smear when he brought his fist back for a second hit.

_It’s no use—_

_You are a—_

As the pain bloomed in his hand again, knuckles bleeding freely now, dripping to the floor, he heard them.

Gunshots. Loud, even through the thick steel. He knew those guns.

Had fought beside them.

“Gabe!” his cry was desperate. “Please!” He kicked the door, his boot barely scuffing the steel, as he heard more shots ring out from behind it. “Oh god. Gabe!” The sob echoed down the corridor, another already rising unbidden as he leaned his head against the cool metal.

— _you can’t save him_

_—fool to hope you can_

Silence.

The security panel flickered. Out of the corner of his eye, it darkened for a moment, as if a shadow passed over it _._ It beeped once and the door slid open, Jack’s heart leaping into his mouth as he almost takes a step back in surprise.

Then his years of soldiering kick in and he rushes the room, gun up and trained on the position from where he had last heard the gunshots.

His enhanced senses take in the scene at once, bits of information flickering lightning quick to his brain. Trying to make some sense out of what was before him. Dark. The server stacks extend outwards from the centre console, their thousand twinkling red lights looking like a constellation of evil, beckoning him into their depths. On the floor, arranged in a ring around the centre console are five corpses. Blackwatch agents. Dead from gunshot wounds. Blood on the floor. Wounds likely caused by shotguns. The shotguns pointed at him. The man holding them blinking in confusion, looking for all the world as if he had just woken up. His eyes flicked from Jack, to the corpses, to his guns, to a little data stick lodged in the console, flashing red light denoting some kind of active data transfer.

They stared at each other for a moment.

_That’s all it takes_

_To find yourself again_

_To rip yourself apart_

Jack’s face breaks. He feels himself shatter. Delicate glass raining down into that dark place. Cutting him into ribbons along the way. The tears on his face like open wounds. His finger on the trigger of his pistol, pointed at his comrade, partner, lover

_Traitor_

_Friend_

“How could you?” he whispered. Voice rasping out, trying to bridge the impossible space between them both.

Gabe looks at him. Really looks—

_Sees you for what you are—_

_Sees the truth for the first time—_

His eyes widen as he comes to the realisation—

_Coward_

_Ignorant_

—betrayal.

 A holo display flickers to life on the console, just above the data stick.

A countdown.

_The world flickers_

_Becomes shades of grey once again_

**Three.**

“Help me,” Gabriel whispers, voice shivering out of the darkness he stands in.

_Hurt_

_Vulnerable_

**Two.**

“Please,” Gabe begs.

Jack stares into Gabriel’s eyes and the abyss finally catches up with him. His fragments are swallowed whole. He loses himself to the dark.

_Save him_

_Please_

**One.**

His finger pulls the trigger as the world turns to fire—

Then pain.

Then the dark once again

_It swallows them whole_

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope this makes sense. Contains a couple of my headcannons that I might expand on later.
> 
> Let me know what you thought! :)
> 
> Come and hang out with me on[Twitter](https://twitter.com/Jakallx) and [tumblr](http://jakallx.tumblr.com/)


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